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Russia ready to offer food assistance to North Korea — Russian ambassador

Pyongyang says it can do without foreign help because it has a good harvest, Russian Ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matsegora said on Sunday

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. Russia is ready to offer food assistance to North Korea, but Pyongyang says it can do without foreign help as it has good harvest, Russian Ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matsegora said on Sunday.

"We offered [our assistance] and supplied 50,000 tons of wheat in 2020. Free of charge, as humanitarian assistance. We were ready to do it now again. But our Korean friends tell us frankly: ‘Thank you very much, we will turn to you when the situation is difficult, now everything is OK.’ And, indeed, this year they have very good harvest," he said in an interview with the Soloviov Live television channel.

Russian Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov said on September 17 that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s official visit to Russia was finished. Kim arrived in Russia on September 12 at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders held talks at the Vostochy spaceport on Wednesday, both one-on-one and with delegations.

Russia was the first state Kim visited after the coronavirus pandemic when his country’s borders were strictly closed. Kim’s previous visit to Russia was held from April 24 through 26, 2019. He arrived in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok onboard his personal train. His talks with Putin in Vladivostok constituted their first-ever personal meeting.